Prost to Oktoberfest

Guten tag from Germany! A bit of a swerve from our Mediterranean adventures, but we wanted to end our time in Europe with a bang: Oktoberfest. It's a bucket list item for us, but we didn't know when we would fly out to do it. Now was the time. Our friends Ayushi, Mike, Saachi, and Chris flew out for a few days of pure debauchery. Our time in Munich was divided between exploring the city and purely engaging in the festival.

Prost!

Pre-Oktoberfest: Exploring Munich

Saachi and Chris also arrived on our first day in Munich, and we promptly made our way to a biergarten for some wienerschnitzel and beer. We were so excited for the week ahead! To keep the party going, Chester found a local bar with very few but positive ratings. We stepped in and found that we were the only ones, and it was a new bar that was undergoing a soft opening. Everyone was super nice and taught us how to cheers in the proper German way. One of the owners was an older Iranian man who moved from Iran forty-four years prior. He learned German but not English, and Chester and him had a very broken but jovial conversation in German. He ended up inviting us to his grand opening that Friday. We were clearly showing off to our friends how well-traveled and friendly we had become. All jokes aside, it was a great start to the trip.

First liter of the trip

The next morning, I dragged Saachi to a running shoe store to get me a new pair of shoes. My Brooks were on their last legs and giving me a ton of pain. I found out only recently that running shoes are meant to last at maximum 500 miles. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure that I've walked and ran much more than that from when I purchased these last December. Anyways, I got a really thorough evaluation from a kind but serious consultant named Yannick. I was in a cute outfit for the day running hard on the treadmill while the rest of the customers had much more suitable wear. It was a comical sight. In case you were wondering, I purchased Asics Gel Kayano 32. 

Exploring Munich with Saachi and Chris

After that, we met up with Chris and Chester at the English Garden to walk around, enjoy a biergarten, and see the river surfers! Chester had been to Munich a couple times in the past and remembered fondly the river surfers near the bridge and wanted to surprise us with it. There's a wave that is pretty consistent that the people of Munich have figured that you can surf. We then proceeded to venture into old town to get more of that traditional Bavarian spirit. We bought some postcards and watched the clock tower show at city hall. Surprisingly, we stumbled upon Heidi Klum's HeidiFest as well. We saw the crowd fangirling over various celebrities we didn't know in their lederhosen and dirndls. We took a rest, and then went for Vietnamese food for dinner to try and cleanse our palettes a bit for the beer and German food ahead.

River surfers

Clock tower show at city hall

American cafe we ate breakfast at a couple times

A bit of whiplash for the tone of this blog, but on Friday before Ayushi and Mike flew in, we decided to go to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. It was important for all of us to get a deeper understanding of the atrocities of that time. What started as a prisoner camp for political opponents of Hitler in 1933 snowballed into an extermination camp by the time the camp closed in 1945. It was terrifying to see the number of parallels of Hitler's Third Reich and Trump's MAGA movement. Examples of this are the rejection of modernism and othering entire groups of people as fear tactics. It was stated that this opposition started small at only 2% but grew to a staggering 40% of Germans. The quote below gave me chills when I read it for the first time.

This room shows the historical background to the Third Reich. This preceding history does not necessarily mean that everything that followed had to happen the way it did, or that it could not have turned out differently. But the seeds of antisemitism, racism, disregard of human dignity and democracy had been sewn through the preceding period, and gained ground after 1933 with alarming speed. Each of us today is shaping the background history of tomorrow. --Chaim Schatzker

We were emotionally drained, but I will say this was one of the most important things we did on this trip. I came away with a more informed perspective and a truer understanding on the cyclical nature of history. It's crazy that society never seems to learn. It's also crazy that the U.S. were the good guys 80 years ago but look at where we are today. Visibly seeing the barracks, the beams where people were hung, and the cremation chambers were incredibly sobering and humbling experiences.

Not a lot of pictures taken here but this one felt poignant. It translates "To honor the dead and to serve as a warning to the living"

Pivoting back to our scheduled content, after a decompression period, we met with Ayushi and Mike and had a traditional Bavarian meal and enjoyed, you guessed it, beer! We had prepped them that we needed to head back to the bar we went to earlier in the week for their grand opening. We walked into lots of Iranian dancing. We were the only non-friends and family there, but once we met the owners, as they say in German alles gut. Somehow we found ourselves dancing to Bollywood music in Germany with a group of Iranians. Talk about a melting pot and probably the most unexpectedly fun night we've had in awhile.

Oktoberfest

It's time for Oktoberfest!

Saturday was opening day for Oktoberfest. We went to Bavarian Outfitters to rent lederhosen and dirndls for a couple days to participate in the festivities. They were awesome to work with, and I would highly recommend if you don't want to buy Bavarian outfits just for a one time wear. We donned on our apparel--looking rather good might I add--and made our way to the festival. It was a mix of carnival with huge beer tents with long-lined tables. It was like Six Flags for adults (though it is a family friendly event). There were tons of rides, carnival games, food stands, souvenirs, and then colossal beer tents. I didn't know what I was expecting, but this was much bigger than I ever expected.

Vibes

Entering the festival, we all had wild ideas that you could buy beer from anywhere and walk on the streets. We soon realized we couldn't do that at all and had to find a tent to order a liter. Being opening day, everything was packed! In the summer that never ends, Munich was 80F, which I don't think anyone was prepared for. The sun was beating down on us, we were slowly getting dehydrated, and hangry. After some wurst, we found a table in a tent in Old Town, ordered our first beer of the day, and were well on our way to recovery. The waitresses were donned in dirndls and had the most impressive arm strength I've ever seen. They could easily carry six liters in their hands to drop off at our table. Tip culture for the staff is huge during the festival and honestly well deserved. Overall, the vibes in the tent were so fun. There was live music playing, people dancing, balancing beer steins on each other and more. One of our favorite traditions was every half hour the tent would break out into song basically singing "I'm cheersing, I'm cheersing" in German. Within a few hours and a couple liters in we were all feeling good and enjoying the day. We even ended our time with a ride on the ferris wheel. We were ready for day 2!

Day 1 excitement

The group!

Gigantic pretzels were had

Ferris wheels were ridden

Wursts and the only good picture of our full outfits

The gals 💕

On day 2, Chester reserved a table for us from 9-4 PM where we could relax and enjoy the day without scrambling for a table like we did the day before. The day began with some breakfast beers, and we were on our way. The tables are packed tightly and you are butt to butt with the person behind you. While initially annoyed about our cramped quarters, one of the tables behind us (a group of German doctors and engineers) ended up chatting with us, and we all quickly became friends. We prosted (cheers) the day away. Right at 4 PM, we were promptly kicked out. We walked the festival grounds a bit to realize we needed a nap and ended our time at Oktoberfest there. We had a ton of plans of wandering around our second day but ended up staying at the table the whole time. All of us had early flights the next day so we said our goodbyes and struggled the next morning on our flights to our various destinations.

Our tent day 2

The group again!

Our new friend Mischa

Steins on steins

All in all, Oktoberfest was a blast! I'm really glad we made the time to do this, as it was on all of our bucket lists. However, I only need to do it once in my life. After drinking liters of beer, I may never view it the same way again and my body needed many days to recover from the fun. Seeing friends abroad is always so fun, and I'm so happy that Saachi, Chris, Ayushi, and Mike were able to join and we all got to spend some quality time together.